Transmission rate control is one of the most important modules in video coding and streaming over resource-limited networks. Failure to effect transmission rate control results in data loss. Many advances in video compression have been made to address the artifacts caused by data losses in the transport medium. These advances can be categorized into two classes. The first class attempts to address error propagation caused by temporal prediction, and includes techniques such as the use of periodic intra-frames and multiple description coding. The second class attempts to minimize the amount of received data that is rendered useless by data loss. Examples include “video packet” (resync markers) and reversible VLC code. Error concealment is a common technique that sits between these two classes.
Beyond the traditional Intra-frame (I-Frame) and the Inter-frame (P-frame) coding, a new frame type S-frame was introduced in the new video coding standard H.264. There are two types of S-frames, namely, the SI frame which is an intra frame encoded, and the SP frame which employs temporal prediction.
An improved system and method for transmission rate control utilizing S-frames and SP frames would be an improvement over conventional encoding and transmission systems and methods.